To the nice lady in the elevator this morning, thank you for your thought. However, it wasn’t allergies that was making me sneeze and caused my eyes to water. It was all brought to me by the delicate admixture of day-old lilac, past-its-prime body powder, and Soviet-era floor cleaner, all tied together with just a whiff of freshly-dead rodent, that your body spray added to the atmosphere.

To the crew that put a new roof on our house last week, thank you. You got it done in record time and even cleaned up after yourselves. The roof survived wind and torrential rain over the weekend, and the water stayed outside. I’ll call that a win.

To the writers and actors on strike in Hollywood, thank you for causing my local drive-in theater to show more classic movies rather than the dreck you’ve been cranking out for the past decade. You stay strong and show your solidarity. So long as we get to watch good movies made before most of you graduated from film school, I support you. Stay out there on the picket lines for months, years if you have to, until your most extreme demands are met.

To the hooved critters that roam through my neighborhood, I have provided for you some feed corn and a block of minerals. This is my compromise to keep you out of the garden. If one more raspberry disappears under mysterious circumstances, I will be forced to disregard the intercession of my wife on your behalf and convert you into something to replace the calories you’ve stolen from us.

• You know someone senior on a conference call has asked a dangerous question when the call goes absolutely silent for 45 seconds.
• After working a 15 hour day, a pleasant dinner and attending a bluegrass performance with your darling wife and the neighbors is an excellent way to end the day.
• As a father, sometimes you have to have the courage to tell a dedicated mother that it’s OK if her child does something hard, even though she could make it easier.
• There’s something peaceful about driving along a 2 lane country road in the middle of a rather violent thunderstorm. All the safety features of the car, if the computer hasn’t turned them off, are useless. Visibility is low, sounds don’t convey anything except rain on the car and the wind. All you have is your memory of the road and the feel of the wheel in your hands to keep you between the semi-visible lines. There are no phone calls, no demanding emails, no complaints, just the engine, tires, and headlights telling you which way to guide.
  • That is, of course, until a rather strong gust of crosswind shoves you three feet to the left in a heartbeat, which snaps you back to reality faster than any cup of coffee ever could.
  • That takes you from Lothlorien to Helm’s Deep pretty darned fast, let me tell you.
• Took advantage of all of the other primates being out of the house for the day to clean carpets. Great googly moogly, I thought we did a better job keeping the house clean, but what came out of that rug shows that I suck at vacuuming.
• Irish Woman is adjusting to the fact that the Young Prince is now in high school. Panic stage will commence in about 24 months, but she’s training hard enough now that it’s going to be one for the record books.
  • Right now, it’s ‘Rocky I’ levels of intensity. By his junior year, it’ll be ‘Rocky IV’.
• Everyone always seems so happy when a long-running issue is fixed after finding a rather simple root cause. I’m always the guy who asks ‘How did it get there?” and “Why didn’t y’all see this yesterday?”
  • Not saying I don’t enjoy my job, because it does have its bright spots, but I do have a countdown app on my phone that tells me exactly how many pay checks I have left before I become eligible for retirement. Just saying.
• If you’re talking to your boss, him smiling and saying ‘Don’t threaten me with a good time’ is a hint that perhaps your thinly veiled threat fell upon infertile ground.